Lightly
by A m r a k l o ve
Summary: "I said I don't dance, Sakura." She's not done waiting, no, because she'll wait for him a lifetime if needed be. And yet, she's done waiting while standing idly aside, doing nothing. "Please?" / Sasusaku travels setting. Pre-700.
1. Part 1

**A/N:** A two-shot for you :) My friend wanted a smut story but I couldn't write it without some kind of plot, hence why it's so long (and it's only the first part, R.I.P. me). This is inspired by a great movie that I watched the other day. Let's see if any of you can tell.

 **E** njoy, you dirty-minded friend.

* * *

 _ **Lightly**_

* * *

Sakura looks over the ingredients. There's nothing missing, she's sure. Her mother used to gather all the ingredients like this, side by side on the pristine counter, and she remembers every single one of the ingredients—her mother had taught her the recipe about ten times, at least, when she was little.

She smiles when she has everything. Finally, she can start.

The water ceases to run in the bathroom on the other side of one of the kitchen's walls. Sakura pours each thing where it belongs, and she pays no mind to the lack of sound.

When the flour in a large bowl is done mixing, she opens another bag of flour, and starts pouring the white mixture over the finished flour she had already prepared on the large bowl.

Everything was under control, it was. The oven was pre-heating up, the counter was extremely clean, and her hands didn't tremble, not even once. Her hands that are always warm and small and so deceivingly delicate; her hands that also shatter extensive feet of earth and heal the most complicated of fractures like a normal occurence.

So, it was under control, before Sasuke entered the kitchen and made her drop the bag with the new flour in the bowl, upside down and spilling the contents everywhere mercilessly.

"Sasuke-kun!"

She quickly picks up the spilled-over bag and turns the opening to face her. The bag expels a sigh, making her close her eyes in alarm.

Soon enough, her face is covered in white, dusty spots. Her hair is probably in the same condition. She clenches her fists and refuses to look at him, deciding to give him her tensed up back.

As a result, she doesn't see the arched eyebrow and the face of pure confusion written in his expression.

She refuses to cough, even if her nose tingles with the need to do so a few times, at the feeling of flour in her every pore.

Sighing, she waits until she regains her composure, her dignity, and her mind. She looks down to the white tiles of the floor, even whiter now with flour spilled over. She looks to the bag of half-empty flour in her hands, closing it slowly (lest it keeps puffing air) and letting it rest on the counter. After examining the minor damage she has done to the mixture—and fixing whatever flour was extra added—she turns to look at him.

Sasuke is leaning on the wall opposite from the counter, a hand enclosing the cup of water he's swallowing, looking at her like nothing had happened.

That's until he stops drinking water to regard her with a frown. It's after a few seconds of her looking at him that he speaks, voice presumably innocent. "What happened?" His hair is damp, his white shirt is slightly wet with distinctive drops of water, and his trousers are as dark as the current night sky. She focuses her gaze on an indefinite point over his naked shoulder.

Well, she was perfectly fine cooking on her own, minding her own business and paying careful attention to everything she was doing. Everything was perfectly fine until he entered with fine, soundless steps and touched her arm before getting a glass of water. She dropped the bag and now...

Sasuke's still looking at her.

Remembering her face was probably still full of flour, she huffs in anger and leaves the kitchen in a blur of pink.

When she gets to the small bathroom, her eyes widen in surprise as she stares back at her disheveled reflection. Her whole face is covered in white powder and the front part of her hair is in the same condition; the pink in that zone is barely, if even, visible.

The tap is opened and she quickly gets rid of the flour on her face, scrubbing away until she sees clear skin once again. She takes off the ponytail and runs her wet fingers through her hair, taking off the flour there, but in turn making her frown at the prospect of washing her hair again later.

She turns off the water.

She _had_ to finish cooking today, even if it took her the whole night.

Walking back to the kitchen, she isn't surprised when she spots Sasuke in the same position in which she last saw him. He shifts slightly once she walks in, turning his head to look at her closer steps. She passes by him, standing in front of the utensils and the spilled-over flour.

Deeming the amount of flour appropriate enough, she wraps the bag close and grabs the eggs.

Beside her, Sasuke silently washes the cup of finished water.

She cracks the eggs open and adds four to the mixture. Then, she adds oil. Adding the final necessary ingredients, in the same order that her mother taught her to, makes her more relaxed.

It's the familiarity that gives her the peaceful moment to herself, how she knows the recipe like the palm of her hand. She seldom notices his presence in the same small room.

When she grabs the wire whisk to start mixing everything up, she feels a warm body next to her. Her confidence trembles. She tenses, almost gasping as Sasuke's hip graces her waist for a split second. It's so quick, so fast that she has no time to blink until the feeling is gone. It flips over in her stomach and laughs at her internal glare, making her flinch when he moves away, when the feeling is gone, when he stays silent. She turns her body toward the right to look at him, and the sight she's greeted with makes her mouth run dry.

Before she'd even started placing each ingredient needed on the counter, before she'd even taken out the groceries she had in the bags, she'd served herself a decent amount of wine in a very decent glass. With the scare she'd got when Sasuke stepped in, and the interruption on her cooking, she had left the lonely glass there. Abandoned.

There's a clinking sound, and then a gulp, and then a turn.

She had forgotten about the wine, for Sasuke is drinking the red substance with a fixed gaze on her. Try as she might, her eyes wouldn't move from staring at the dark, bottomless black on his right eye, and at the lilac, spiralling madness on the left.

His hand moves away from his mouth and his eyes leave hers, hand gripping the cup that's suddenly, unintentionally in front of her face. He licks his lips to taste the bitter liquid; quickly, but slowly playing in her head, over and over until she feels confident enough to open her own lips.

She bites her lower lip just as he raises the glass to his own. And it's in slow motion once again, torturing her soul like a stab in her back.

Before he can finish the contents, she takes hold of the glass—her glass, really—suspended in the air, millimetres away from his lips. She carefully avoids touching his own fingers.

If he opposes to the fact that she's interrupting his drink, he does not show it. Instead, he lets go of the glass and drops his arm at his side.

Sakura finishes the wine, and puts down the cup on the counter, moving about to grab the bottle of wine and pour herself another glass.

In the meantime, he sighs and moves his right hand to enter the pocket of his trousers.

The lack of his left arm is wrapped in white bandages with a knot at the end; he finds it's better if it's wrapped up, rather than bare and vulnerable.

As she takes hold of the now full glass once again, he glances to the right, to the mixing bowl, narrowing his eyes ever-so slightly. The kitchen full of containers and utensils, the counter with flour on top.

It's not that he disagreed, it's that he didn't think it was one of her best ideas.

The words are out like a storm in a sunny day.

"You do realise we're leaving this town in two days," he states, glancing to the left to look at her.

She takes a breath and purses her lips, taking a sip of the wine in her hand.

"I do," she answers without a hint of annoyance. Moving to his right side, she walks around him with a patience she didn't know she possessed. "But we've been in the same town for a week, now, and as you may already know, I have been quite busy helping around."

He frowns as she finishes the glass in a few, quick gulps. She puts it on the counter with a weak slam, and grabs hold of the wire whisk. "Help yourself to another glass."

Sasuke stares; he doesn't drink any more wine.

Instead, he grabs the bottle and puts it on the shelf. It's then when he grabs her empty glass of wine and puts it in the sink; he proceeds to wash it. She notices when she's not looking and her hand reaches to hover over an empty space on the counter.

"Hey!" Sakura widens her eyes and places a hand on his forearm, quick to apply enough pressure for his hand to stop moving. "I wasn't done. Why are you washing it?" She turns her head and gasps when the bottle is high on a shelf she can't reach—she'd had to stand on a chair before, a really old chair, to get the bottle. "The bottle too? What's your problem?"

She had been screaming, so he had waited. And waited. Until his arm started to go numb and her questions hadn't faded away.

He takes a deep breath and looks at her from under his nose, a frown etching into his features. How could she _talk_ so much?

"Sakura," he closes his eyes for a moment, before looking at her and her sudden quietness. "Do you plan on getting drunk while baking for children?"

There's a silence in the room that doesn't really belong in which they stare at each other. She gapes at him.

Sasuke had been training and wandering around the town and helping every civilian that needed it in the past week. She, in turn, had nothing to do but stay at the inn from the morning until nighttime. On the first day since their arrival, she had done just that. She had cooked for them and had unpacked the scarce things they'd brought with them and had laid in bed with nothing to do. On the second day, though, she'd gone out and walked around the small village, nameless and friendly. She'd found a small hospital, the smallest one she'd ever seen. From then on and until this day, she's been helping around the hospital with her knowledge and skills.

Everyone had been friendly with her, nurses and doctors and patients. But the people who captured her heart completely were the children. She would play with them and teach them things as little as explaining to them what chakra control means. For a civilian town, everyone had little to no knowledge on ninjas.

They'd carved a special place in Sakura's heart, that's for sure. With their sparkly eyes and soft, high-pitched voices.

Sakura had promised them that before leaving the town she would give them a surprise. And that's what she's doing now: baking cupcakes as a surprise.

She, hesitantly, moves her hand away from his arm and looks up at him and he swears he sees the determination in those green eyes. " _Listen_ ," she highlights with her voice, walking to a corner in the kitchen and getting the wobbly chair. She steps on it, not once faltering even though the chair itself looks like it's about to give away. Reaching with her arm, she grabs the bottle with a firm hand and looks down at him with a fierce look. He holds the glare with his own narrowed eyes. "I can _finish_ this bottle, if I want to."

She doesn't explain how her training with Tsunade has left her almost immune to alcohol consumption—yes, she can still get drunk, but only after a very large amount of drinks (not the two that she's had, that's for sure).

He frowns and looks at the bottle, at the chair, and back at her with a blank expression she obviously can not decipher. "And still be sober, I suppose."

Sakura takes the bottle from the shelf, steps down from the chair, puts it in the corner where it belongs, and looks at him like she's drilling holes in his skull.

"Of course."

She walks back to the bowl, grabs the whisk, and he resumes washing.

* * *

The scroll he's reading talks about jutsus he already knows. He's read it over ten times already since Sakura joined him on his travels—in a week it would be a month since then.

It's mundane, and he's kind of tired of reading the same words over and over again, about jutsus he's been practicing since he was a boy.

And, although this makes him wish there was something more interesting to do, it's not the reason why he stands up from the worn-out couch abruptly when a half-scream is heard from the kitchen.

He's there in less than a second, in a flash of confusion and alertness.

"Shit, shit, shit." Sasuke stares stupefied. Sakura wasn't prone to cursing, and much less when there wasn't an immediate threat, like he thought. And, looking around the room like a madman and seeing there's nothing to worry about, he knows there's no threat.

Before he can ask about what is happening, she turns around and looks at him like she's been caught stealing candy from a baby. She sounds unexpected, embarrassed. "Sasuke-kun?"

His neck burns crimson when he knows he's been discovered. He stares at her for what seems like an eternity before she speaks again, confusion clearly apparent on her face.

"Is something wrong?"

Well, that's what he'd wanted to ask a minute ago.

Glancing around the room at everything in his current line of vision, he spots the cupcakes on a tray at the far side of the counter, just right over Sakura's shoulder, and an empty bottle of wine next to it. He has the urge to frown.

He sighs and instead opts for the truth.

"I heard your scream."

It's just a few words without any kind of elaboration, but she takes them in quickly as if he'd said more than enough. She blushes a little in embarrassment. "Oh."

She fidgets with her hands a bit, and turns around to grab the tray with a dozen cupcake wrappers on it. She shows it to him, biting her lip. "See?" He has the urge to squint. See, what? Sakura shakes her head.

"On the side, Sasuke-kun," she explains, "I spilled the mixture over the wrappers and now I can't get it out and it's going to look so messy and this was supposed to be a surprise for them but now it's going to be really ugly and the sizes of the cupcakes are going to be disproportional and, how am I going to explain that to them? I think they'll be so disappointed, what with this disaster because: Can't I bake, Sasuke-kun?" She takes a deep breath, "and that's why I screamed."

Throughout her rambling, Sasuke was looking at the cupcakes. If he's honest, he didn't pay any attention to what she'd been saying. But he has an idea on why she screamed, so he gives her a simple nod and looks at the seemingly, perfectly managed, uncooked cupcakes.

"That's fine." It's all he says, and he realises his mistake a few seconds late. He quickly adds something else when he notes her face of pure distress, "I'm sure they won't notice."

Sakura huffs in exasperation and puts the tray in the only oven of the inn (they'd made sure to pay a decent sum of money to be in a decent room, as they were to stay in town for a week or so. It's not like it was a large inn, anyway, probably had two or three rooms in total), making sure to put the right amount of time and temperature.

He looks at it all, shaking his head at her panicked state when it was cupcakes they were talking about.

He returns to the living room and there's nothing to do but read the stupid scroll, so he grabs it and folds it up and puts it on a shelf that's full of Sakura's medical scrolls.

When he realises he's not sleepy enough to go to bed yet, he grabs his sword and sits on the couch, stone in hand.

He places the weapon on his lap and starts sharpening it with a callous, strong hand.

* * *

He falters in his methods, puffing out an exasperated sigh out of his throat and into the living room. And in the back of his head he hears the static get louder. Nevertheless, he continues sharpening his weapon with a firm grip, not minding the sounds of protest from a very angry Sakura just a few feet away from him.

"Will this thing work already?" A pause, and then: "It looks fairly new, right? Then, why doesn't it..."

He pays none of his time to the static of the machine. He pays none of his time to regard the amusing sight before him. Instead, he focuses entirely into his work; the only sound he dares hear is the one his Katana makes.

But it's a little hard not to notice the infuriated huffs, the soft slams of a hand on the machine from time to time, and the questions that go unanswered, not to mention the static sound the machine keeps making. It's like a drilling in his ear.

"Ah, there we go!" It is then that he looks at her from under his long bangs. He focuses on his sword soon enough. And even when the happy tempo of the music reverberates in his mind, he refuses to let it deter his concentration.

If it wasn't already, she puts the volume even higher. These walls are made of paper, and he wonders if anyone else in the other one or two rooms will hear. She doesn't seem to care, though, as she swings her arms in the air and moves to the sound of the music, giving him her back.

And so as he keeps sharpening his weapon with a heavy arm, his brow deepening when she starts humming the fast melody.

And so after sighing for the upteenth time, he leaves his Katana on the couch and stands up with his lips in a straight line. He moves, taking steps to the hallway that leads to his room, walking around her in the process.

He saw her hand before he heard her giggle; a butterfly pressure is on his chest and he stops in his tracks. He looks at her face, a head below his own, one feet apart. He has the urge to ask _what_ , but he scratches the idea when she talks her mind first. His head is starting to pound with a headache, and all he really wants to do now is go to sleep.

"Hm, it's barely nine," she says as she sports a tiny frown, clearly faking the mistrust and instead opting to wear a small pout to convey her innocent façade. He stares.

"So?"

She smiles and takes his hand with both of hers, and his eyes nearly widen. "Sakura-"

"Come on, Sasuke-kun." She tries to move him forward so that they're closer to the radio, but he stays rooted in place like a dutiful statue. He knows Sakura can very easily summon her out-of-this-world strength, yet she doesn't and this isn't so surprising to him for some reason.

When she accepts that he wants to stay close to the arch of the start of the hallway, she sighs, and holds his hand between them, in front of her chest—which is at the height of his abdomen.

Without any further words, and surprising him a bit, she moves his hand with the beat of the song (the same one, he notices, from when he was sitting on the couch). It's probably a pop song, from the sound of it. His hand moves up and down in short motions, moving from side to side from time to time, like a little kid making a small victory dance.

He scowls. She doesn't care.

And just like a scene from a romantic novel, she twirls around her axis in a circle under his arm, still holding onto his hand. As she comes back to face him once again, she smiles at him, and the song ends.

All the while he's been standing in the living room like a fool, the only part of him moving being the hand in her grasp.

His headache increases when a new song starts to play from the old speakers.

This song is a slow one, a baritone voice singing in a tongue he thinks is French, and he wants to walk away as fast as his legs let him.

When she begins to move his hand once more, he stills it, stopping her silly attempts at dancing with a brusque and sudden movement.

"I don't _dance_ ," he states, so serious and grave that she looks taken aback for a split second. With a glare straight from hell, he turns around.

Not even two steps toward his room, he feels a pull from behind. She's grabbing his white, cotton shirt, biting her lip with indecision.

He looks at her from over his shoulder. "Sorry," she whispers, and he wonders if she can tell how much force he had to use to swallow. "Just one dance," his eyes narrow, turning his head to look at the darkness of the hallway that leads to the rooms.

All his life he'd been alone, seeking power and vengeance for his family. He remembers how his only goal was once in the darkness, and he can't help but let a shiver run up his spine. Those days are over. Now he has Kakashi, Naruto, and Sai (even if they don't really get along because of the painter's boldness, but they're working on it). Now he has Sakura.

"Please?" He's not looking at her, but he can tell her eyes are shining with hope and her lips are trembling with fear. He can't help but wonder if she's really drunk, contrary to what she'd said. A flash of an image runs through his mind, an empty bottle the subject.

He's not looking at her, and she can't see him, so he lets his eyes close.

Sakura who loves him, who cares about him with genuine affection, who would do anything for him, who has given her heart to him since he was a little boy.

His eyes open to stare at a forgotten darkness.

With a sigh, he finally turns around and steps closer to her, hovering over her form like a tower. It's when he nods that she gives him a small smile, right from her wishful heart.

His ears turn a deep shade of red as he feels her put her hands on his chest. She moves with the music, lightly like a flower in the middle of a breeze. He doesn't really know what to do with his hand, and she takes note on that. But, thankfully, she doesn't say anything about his cluelessness.

She guides his hand to her waist, and his hand twitches unconsciously when she lets go, leaving it to rest there on the thin material of her shirt.

He's ready to let go and walk away, damn her pleading eyes and soft voice to the moon, but then he feels her head fall on his chest and his body tenses, eyes widening against her knowledge.

He starts moving slowly, following her own expert steps without moving away at all through the song.

* * *

When the song ends, he steps away slowly and looks at her for a fleeting moment, his hand leaving her waist altogether. She blushes and he scowls.

"One more?"

He knows she's kidding, as he knows her well enough to know she wouldn't do that to him. He almost scoffs. And although he knows she's joking, he goes along with it.

"I said I don't dance, Sakura." There's a gleaming in his eyes as he speaks, Sakura notes. She smiles at him, crossing her arms.

"But you were just dancing, right over here."

They stare at each other for seconds, minutes, hours. She doesn't know, and she doesn't care. The fact that Sasuke is humoring her in his own way is _too good_ to pass. So, as anyone would do in her position, she takes advantage of the oportunity.

She is enjoying spending time with him, talking with him without his common aloofness and coldness. He's always turning his shoulder to her, giving her his back, muttering one or two words here and there, establishing eye contact only in crucial or sporadic moments. His presence, body and soul, not with her but specifically during the main meals of the day, and conversation kept to a minimum—from his part, because she was talking every time she got a chance.

She knows he needs time, time to heal his past and to start building a future. That he needed space to start accepting himself, the wrongs and the goods he's done in his life. That he had to think about everything in the past before walking in the present. That he had to fight with himself until there were no demons to kill anymore.

She knows.

And the little conversations and interactions they had in their travels didn't bother her in the least.

Because then there are the tiny moments that make her heart race; sudden skin-to-skin brushes, short glances into screaming eyes, soft _thank you_ s in a harsh voice and meaninful actions. Giving her his cloak when it's cold at night and they're on their way to another town, letting her sleep in all she wanted when she just _knew_ he wanted to depart early to the next village after a night spent camping in the woods.

She knows all of this, and because of said reasons, she has decided.

Loving him without getting reciprocated for so many years can tire even the most devoted of lovers. And she is getting tired. Because she loves him and her heart aches for him every time he's near, with the yearning to touch him but with the fear of rejection close to her palms.

He fists the air with his hand.

Needless to say she's not done waiting, no, because she'll wait for him a lifetime if needed be. And yet, she's done waiting while standing idly aside, doing _nothing_. So, what if she meets face to face with rejection? Nothing will deter her resolve, not after so long.

She takes a step back and opens her arms at her sides, palms facing him. And she takes a fine breath. "You don't want to dance? Fine." Now there's a gleaming in _her_ eyes, and he doesn't know how to take it.

His lips make a straight line, looking at her from under long bangs as she stands in a defensive manner.

Before he can ask what she's doing, she speaks.

"Let's spar, Sasuke-kun."

He doesn't know if she's serious and he doesn't intend to find out.

He takes a tentative step back, and finally turns around when she doesn't move further.

"I'm going to my room, Sakura."

It's definite: he's leaving to his room this time. He takes one step forward. The tension in the room is so thick he can pretend to touch it. He takes another step. His eyes widen when he feels the air move behind him.

He takes a sharp breath as she throws herself on his back, making him fall toward the tiles of the floor.

He knows he could have prevented the impact from ever occuring, but he didn't. The adrenaline he feels runs through his veins as he's falling, face-first to the floor beneath his feet, makes him remember something. If he lets his mind dwell on the matter, it's a very clear notion that somehow bothers him; he han't fought in _months_ while they were traveling, and even before that. The rogue ninja they ran into from time to time didn't really quell his desire for a good fight; most likely, Sakura would defeat them before he could even land a hit. Not that he wasn't proud, but he still wanted to break someone's bones once in a while.

When some people are nervous, angry, or tense, they use techniques to remain calm, like smoking or having sex or meditating. He considers himself a pretty calm man already, but sometimes he really, really could use a good fight to forget the world. And Sakura was a good fighter.

He wants to sleep. His head hurts. More than anything, this fight screams to him, so he listens.

As soon as he feels the ground underneath his face, she beams with victory, only that not for long. His body puffs in smoke and under Sakura there's a log instead of his body.

 _Substitution jutsu._

She frowns and turns around fast enough to dodge a punch to her face. Sakura stands, looking at his figure from across the living room. When she dashes forward, all hell breaks loose.

An opera song plays in the background.

* * *

The room is a mess.

Two chairs are upside down, the wooden coffee table is on its side, flowers she didn't take notice of before are now sprawled and stepped on on the floor, and there's a broken lamp that rests against the wall at a corner of the room. She looks at him and he looks at her and then they're running toward each other, away, and back again toward each other. There are no weapons used, it's just taijutsu in its rawest forms.

His hand moves toward her and she sits on the heels of her shoes, feeling the air over her head move with his unsuccessful punch. Her hand swings across his side from her lower position, but he moves fast enough to dodge it. She stands.

Sasuke punches and Sakura dodges. She swings her hand and he steps out of the way. They don't land a hit; not even one since they started sparring.

His leg graces her arm when he ducks to land a hit on her, but she quickly takes a step back and grabs his leg to push him toward her and onto the floor. It doesn't happen, though, because he twists around his own axis and pulls _her_ toward him.

Sakura gasps.

Before she can react, he's up on his feet and with a growl he takes a step.

One of the two couches, the smallest one, falls on its side when Sasuke pushes her body against it, the old furniture making a sound of complain before lying still on the cold floor, where Sakura's head lies.

It's not there for long, though, for she pushes him off when she knees him in the stomach. His body stops applying pressure on her own, and so she finds an escape route. She's back on her feet before they can blink, standing over him and ready to punch him in the head with newfound anger for tricking her.

And she's ready to swing her right hand down, the force of her punch sure to draw a little of blood from the wound. As she collides her fist with solid material, she takes a moment to blink. Seconds pass.

She's touching the tiles of the living room, and right where his head should be, there's a diminute crack on the floor.

She resists the urge to curse, deciding to stand straight once more and look around her surroundings. She doesn't get to look around for too long.

Not long after she stands up, her neck stretches back and she feels a body pressed against her backside, hair grasped and pulled back with such force that she finds it hard to swallow. Sasuke's harsh breathing is close to her left ear, making her close her eyes, hard, hoping she could stay this close to him forever. She lets a small whimper fall from her lips without thinking about it, mind only focused on his warm chest against her shoulder blades. And she opens her eyes wide when she notices the slip she's let out and the tensed body behind her.

She can feel his fingers letting go slowly of her hair, almost completely, maybe thinking that he's hurting her, and she turns around quickly enough to see the surprise in his red eyes.

She tries to hit him but he grabs her suspended hand in the air with his own. Her other hand tries to land a hit on his stomach, but his leg easily blocks it.

Thinking this might be the end of the fight, she tries to look for alternatives. This is not the end; it mustn't be. So she pushes against him with all the force she can muster.

And soon enough, they're free falling in the air for a second before colliding with something soft.

He clashes with the still-upright sofa. And as this one is against the wall, it doesn't move at all. But they're moving, so he rolls off from the couch and onto the floor, on top of her. She rolls them over, and then she's stradling him with her head on his shoulder, and his hand holding strongly onto her waist.

They stay quiet, unmoving, until she can hear the clock on the far wall; so far she barely pays attention to it, because she feels a frantic heartbeat against her chest. And, although her heart is beating fast enough to outrun the fastest of ninja, she knows this one is not her own. This one is way calmer, slower than her heart but faster than normal.

Sasuke has been a ninja for more than a decade. He knows how to control the beating of his heart, and his blood pressure is in check all the time. Then, why is it beating so fast against her own?

She opens her eyes to gaze at the darkness of his shoulder and she can finally feel his hand clutching at her waist and her legs at his sides, knees touching the floor beside his hips.

She doesn't want to look at him, doesn't want to stand up and forget about it, or look into his eyes and regret trying to stop waiting altogether. But she's raising her head before she can berate herself, and she's looking into his eyes before she can look away.

They're red, the sharingan the most detailed she's ever seen. And they're spiralling at her own, looking into her eyes like a bomb about to explode unexpectedly. She doesn't blame him; after all, she _is_ less than one feet apart from his face. If she tries to get a little bit closer, she can swear she'll feel his breath against her mouth, and his lips against her own.

Memories of harsh lips against her softer ones pass by her eyes like an old, broken film.

It's only then that she realises she's still panting, even after being more than one minute relaxing, flushed against his chest. Sasuke, as she would have guessed, is not panting at all. His respiration pattern is way calmer than the beating of his frenzied heart.

She lets her hands come out from between them, and onto the floor at the sides of his neck. Raising her head and body up, knees still at his sides, she looks down at him with more confidence, now that there is at least one foot separating their faces and she can think coherently. Her hands support her weight as she speaks.

"I win, Sasuke-kun." She smiles, still panting a little from their wrestling activity from before. There is something acking to frustration in him before it dissipates into the natural dark of his expressionless eyes.

He frowns, and looks at her for a long time. "We'll have to pay for this, you know," he says, a serious tone making itself present.

"I know," she whispers. "There's no one in the inn until tomorrow, though. The owner let me know while you were out in the morning."

That explains a lot of things in his head. The loud music, the sparring session, the carelessness in her actions.

"Aa."

Her elbows give out for a moment with an _ouch_ and his sharingan activates without a second thought, as if it's second nature. She stares at Sasuke with a blush, inches separating them once again. Her hair falls around her and down toward him, like a protective barrier covering the world around them; it tickles his cheeks.

Her want is so obvious that he has to deeply sigh, his red eyes extinguishing into black once more.

Sasuke slowly retreats the forgotten hand from her waist and decides to place it on the floor next to him in order to stand up. He lifts his body up slowly and brings them both to sit—her body slides onto his lap on its accord.

And in the back of Sasuke's mind there's a little voice telling him to ask something that's been knocking at his door since her yelp in the kitchen. The empty bottle of wine flashes in his memory, the way she asked him to dance—for god's sake, to dance with _him_ —without a sense of doubt. His voice is rasp and rough in the edges when he speaks, close to her face.

"Are you drunk?"

She takes a moment to process his question, ears more alert to the sound of his breathing than the sound of his manly timbre. She shakes her head a little to answer his question.

"Nope."

He wants to stand before his mind drifts to places he doesn't want to go, to the conclusions he doesn't want to think about. Instead, he sighs against her lips and swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down once with the motion.

There's silence between them, in the room, in the inn, and probably in the streets of the small town. Sakura looks at him: at his lips, at the little lines that grace the sides of his mouth (as if he's laughed for centuries, even if she knows it's not true, even if she knows the lines are faded but altogether the same his brother had once), at his straight, gentle nose, and at his dark, dark eyes. The same eyes that stare at her own—green and yellow and the colour of apples, or the colour of fading leaves in late summer.

 _If she isn't drunk_ , he thinks, _then she did all of those things on her own will._ If too scared or too brave, he does not know.

They're so, so close. Sakura wants to bite her lip and kiss him here and there, with no second guessing. She can't, so she opts for the silence and the yearning.

But she's waited for so long, so long she feels that if she doesn't reach out to him now she'll lose him forever. Better try than not try at all.

And her hand is shaking at her side, and she can't move even if she wills herself to, but then she blinks and before she knows it her hand is moving on its own, in between their bodies and toward his cheek. And she wants to stop it from going any further because: what if he moves away, what if he flinches and flees from her touch?

But all of her questions go unanswered. Because as soon as her palm touches the soft flesh of his cheek, he kisses her.

His lips press against her with the softest of touches, the gentlest of pressures she could've imagined. There are no twisted tongues or open mouths in the process. It's just a touch, and it's gone before she can truly feel it through her. His head slightly moves away from hers, breaking her dreaming mind, and he stares at her eyelids still fluttering, eyes closed.

She joins their lips together once again, harder and rougher this time, afraid he'll regret it all. He touches her waist and fists her shirt without really registering it in his brain; her shirt rides up with his hand and their lips move against each other's with a hunger that makes him frown.

She's touching his cheeks with both hands, pulling at the hair on the back of his head, grasping his shoulders with force, putting her hands anywhere she can in the high she's achieved. And when she breaks the kiss for a second or two and kisses him again, he doesn't question it. He barely sees anything; everything is blurry and he feels dizzy, a good kind of dizzy.

But then he's touching the hard skin of her toned stomach and he feels her hand guide his own upward, toward something round and soft and cold. She lets his hand rest there. He presses it harder on her skin. And when she moans, he breaks away so quickly that she gasps from the look on his face.

"Sakura." It's as if the gods are laughing at her face. "Stop." He voices it in a whisper, afraid she'll do something stupid, like a hurting man.

His shirt is gone, he realises. Somehow, he'd taken it off—as well as her own, too.

Her breasts stand pert in the soft air coming from a fan on the ceiling, facing him and making him glance down for a moment before closing his eyes and turning his head in another direction.

Her mouth closes in a grim line and she puts the shirt back on, all the while looking at his face, hidden by his longs bangs.

She doesn't know what got into her, really-

 _No_. She _does_ know.

She knows it's only been a few weeks traveling together and all, and she knows she wants him. And she also knows she wants him to want her.

It's not something new that they had kissed. And although she admits they have kissed before—short and sudden, quick kisses that didn't hold anything in between—this kiss was something else. This kiss, she thinks, did hold some meaning to _him._

Without further ado, she stands and leaves to the kitchen, turning off the music in the process. She throws the empty bottle of wine to the trash, and takes out the cupcakes, ready to be decorated.

She frowns, knowing that he had initiated the kiss, and that he had wanted to kiss her.

She understands that she needs to wait for him; just a little bit longer, just long enough for him to reciprocate.

She sighs.

Sasuke leaves to his room before she even enters the kitchen.

* * *

 **A/N:** There's a next part coming up, don't worry.


	2. Part 2

**A/N:** There is no smut, but it's okay because the tension in this part makes up for it (not really, but let me feel better). I just felt that the story was good with the final ending and everything happening before that. I really wanted to write the smut, but I guess it'll be some other time. It's alright, cause I've explained the situation to my friend and she's fine with it, so yeah. This is the last part, I hope you like it! Review and lemme know.

* * *

 _ **Lightly**_

* * *

The next day, Sakura wakes up to the sound of a door closing.

She opens her eyes to stare at the wall that's parallel to the door of her room. The day outside is sunny, her eyes ache from sleep deprivation, and the world is quiet around her.

She lets the rosette covers pool around her feet on the futon, blinking a few times to let the sleep she craves go away.

It's already six in the morning.

She sits, her long, nighttime camisole riding up with the motion. She gets up and barely flinches when the cool floor meets her feet in a cruel embrace.

Her hands reach up to rub at her tiresome eyes, not bothering to hide a yawn that makes her stretch in the middle of the small room, tiny sounds of joints cracking making their way to her ears.

She undresses, fast, her hands sliding up her dress-like garment for sleeping and tossing it on the futon carelessly.

The steps she takes toward the compressed, small wardrobe are short and hurried, sleep forgotten and buried deep in her mind. She chooses the first thing she sees—a red, sleeveless shirt and white shorts that reach mid-thigh.

She quickly dresses up and fixes her hair into a ponytail.

Without further ado, Sakura leaves the room and closes it behind her, walking three steps across the hallway and into the bathroom. She picks up her brush, brushes her teeth, and washes her face with haste before almost sprinting toward the kitchen.

She doesn't bother to let her gaze roam endlessly in his room's direction, for he's not there at all—he woke her up, after all.

* * *

"Sakura-san!"

"Look, guys, she's here!"

"I told you she'd come!"

"Thank you, Sakura-san."

"Yes! I knew you would bring these!"

"I don't like chocolate, though..."

"She brought different flavours, moron!"

"Sakura-san! Over here!"

"Oh! Thank you so much, Doctor Haruno!"

She smiles, and laughs as they beam with the excitement only children can posses. It radiates off their bodies like a warm touch to her cheeks in a summer's breeze, the happiness derived from surprise making her hurry up her steps to give them what she'd stayed up all night making.

It's when she gives them the cupcakes that her eyes water, if only just a little.

These children, all in one big room for months and months and years, bedridden to face a poor life or—worse—to perish in an inevitable fate. These children, all side by side in beds that are meant to hold bigger, stronger bodies, forced to endure life without really living it. These children who hold so much innocence and happiness in a small civilian village, which is thereby, by logic, meant to welcome not so many people—children, even less—into its one and only hospital. These children make Sakura's heart warm up with love and care.

Even if she's leaving soon, she vows to herself to return one day to this small village on the outskirts of Suna, almost in Ishi.

"Will you leave today, then?" One of them asks, the oldest girl, she thinks: thirteen years old.

Sakura just smiles, nodding once and looking at all the other kids eating their respective cupcakes.

So she delivers the cupcakes, talks with each nurse and doctor and patient, helps in the healing of three broken bones on three different persons and one long gash along the back of an old man, eats lunch in the cafeteria with one of the male doctors who she's talked with the most, bids farewell to everyone in the hospital, and then leaves said place altogether.

Her way back is short. She returns to the inn at five in the afternoon, way over the time she'd wanted to be back. But she really had to say goodbye to everybody, she really had to say a goodbye to this town before leaving, like any other town they'd traveled before.

When she opens the door to the inn, she realises the owner is not there yet. She wonders if she'll have to wait for days until the owner returns so that she can pay what she has to, for the damage they'd made the day before.

Sakura shakes her head from side to side, thinking that she can leave the money somewhere hidden for the owner to find it, were the clerk to spend a few more days away.

She walks past the front desk of the inn, entering a hallway to the right side and walking in the last door at the end of the hall, past two rooms, with a turn of her keys. Another hall meets her, this one way shorter and only long enough to bear two doors on the left and one to the right—the bathroom, Sasuke's room, and her room. She closes the door behind her with the keys and keeps walking until she's at the end of the hallway, looking ahead of her at the ruined living room. To the left, the kitchen presents itself with the courtesy of darkness and silence.

She turns on the light of the living room, and then the kitchen, walking in and staring at the sole, full plate of food on the table.

Giving the food a closer look, she notices it's one of her favourite dishes.

Her stomach does a flip. She extends her chakra around their room, trying to catch any spark of chakra from Sasuke. Unsuccessful, she estinguishes her search with chakra and turns around.

Looking around, she doesn't notice him anywhere, and then she thinks that there's a possibility that he's in his room. There's also the possibility that he had gone to the inn to eat and then gone out again and still wasn't back.

But then again, she hadn't felt his presence anywhere in the inn's room, so why check his room?

Sakura sighs.

She looks at the untouched food on the plate. Sasuke left it for her, knowing that she was always present at lunch.

She sighs again.

Glancing to the right, to the living room, she bites her lip and walks toward the hallway once again. She stops when she reaches Sasuke's room, quiet and dark and eerie.

She stands in front of it for what seems like an eternity. She doesn't feel his chakra signature anywhere near her, so she knocks.

When nobody answers, she takes the golden handle with unsteady hands and turns it ever-so slightly, revealing a portion of the futon in the corner. She completely opens the door, internally hoping that she doesn't have to see him, but at the same time wanting to see him all the same.

And when she enters with a hesitant step, against the darkness and the silence, Sasuke is not there.

* * *

She's folding her second set of clothes, putting them in her travel-size bag for when they leave, when she hears him. He closes the door of the hallway and locks it, taking his time walking down the hall; she holds her breath when he stops at her door.

She stays there, rooted in place with a shirt in hand, supended in the air at the lack of sound from his footsteps. If she focuses hard enough, she swears she hears his breathing from the other side of the door; silly, but possible.

She turns around to face her door. Momentarily, she sees the shadow of his feet under the door, and she thanks her brilliant mind for leaving the light of the hall on before, because that's the only reason why she can tell he's just outside her room.

The sky outside is bereft of any clouds, the sun gone and the colour turning a dark shade of blue.

Her heart races against her chest, the anticipation killing her slowly. Suddenly and without any warning, she takes a step toward the door.

And as soon as he hears a second step following the first one, he leaves. His feet fade away into the living room, and she stops walking altogether.

She goes to sleep early that night.

* * *

It's barely five in the morning when Sakura feels a voice rise her from her dreams.

It was scheduled for them to leave the town at night, for them to reach Ishi in the early morning of the next day, but Sasuke's proving her wrong by poking her side with his foot, tentatively but impatient.

Sakura muffles a groan on the pillow and looks at him from under her arm. He looks at her and she can tell he's annoyed.

She sits, glaring at him through the process.

"What." It's not a question; she drags the letters between her lips and from the deepest part of her throat. She sounds drunk, if she's honest.

He doesn't move nor does he make any facial expressions. "We're leaving. Gather your things and meet me outside." It's all he says, and then he turns around and leaves the room with a few steps, closing the door softly behind him.

She wants to scream at him and demand answers, but her throat is tightly closed and her sight is lost in the sheets underneath her. She wants to demand answers, but he's gone and she swallows up the lump in her throat with difficulty. She blinks, deciding that for answers she has to go outside.

She gets up and changes into dark, short leggings, a tight skirt over them, and a red ninja shirt, the outfit a trademark of hers. She decides to let down her hair, the ends brushing a little past her shoulders in a soft touch.

Grabbing her beige cloak, she draps it over her frame and moves her bag over her head and toward the right side of her body, opposite to where her kunai pouch is, strapped to her left thigh.

After going to the bathroom and after grabbing an apple from the kitchen, she goes outside of the hallway, their room. She rounds up the corner and stops in her tracks.

The owner of the inn looks at her with a forced smile.

"Sakura-san, good morning," the short old lady exclaims, her eyes almost closing from her smile. Sakura smiles back.

"Good morning," she approaches the counter and looks at her from behind it, the warm colours on the walls of the inn welcoming her. She tells her she's leaving, and, wasting no time, she approaches the topic that's been in her mind for two nights. "I'm sorry, Ayame-san, but something came up the other night and the living room-"

"Oh, no worries, dear," the woman shushes her with her hand, moving it from side to side in front of her face. "That handsome man over there let me know what _exactly_ happened." She points to Sasuke, probably outside of the building, but Sakura does not look. Her words drag over the air as if highlighting each syllable. "Do not fret over it, I can see why you would mess up a room like that with such young man."

At Sakura's furious blush, the old woman lets a heartful laugh escape her wrinkly lips. Sakura fumbles over the words at the insinuation.

"No, no, it's not like that at all! We were fighting, I know we shouldn't have done that in your inn, and things got pretty intense."

"Oh, I can imagine how intense they got, honey."

Sakura blushes even more, her eyes widening and mind going crazy: _what did Sasuke tell her?_

Sakura shakes her head and reaches for a thin stack of money, sure to cover everything. The woman looks at it and shakes her head a little while looking at her.

"It's alright, he already paid for all the damage. Have a good trip, Sakura-san."

Sakura is left speechless for a moment, and then she nods twice and puts the money safely inside her bag once again.

"You too, Ayame-san. Thank you for letting us stay."

She bows her head a little before turning around and opening the door to the outside scenery.

She finds him immediately.

Sasuke's sitting on a rock at the side of a stream, a good twenty meters away from the inn.

She walks to him, and with a sigh, she stops in front of his figure. He's looking at the stream with a boring look on his face.

He turns his head to regard her, looking up to meet her eyes. "Ready?"

She wastes no time.

"What _exactly_ did you tell that woman?"

Sasuke merely raises an eyebrow, lowering his head and looking at the stream once more. After a few seconds, and just when she's about to shake the answer out of him, he speaks.

"I told her the truth."

Sakura thinks this is the same thing as telling her nothing at all.

"Which is?"

"Which is," he turns to look at her again, a look of pure irritation in his face. "We sparred in the room and messed it up. I also added the fact that you were drunk."

Sakura blinks. She opens her mouth when he makes no sign of correcting himself. "But I wasn't!"

"I know," he says, a tired frown making its way onto his face. "But she wouldn't believe we only sparred; when I told her you drank an entire bottle of wine in one hour, she understood."

He stands up, looking at her from under his nose for a moment before taking a few steps toward the forest, straight ahead.

"Hey," she bites her lip, standing next to him a second later. "Weren't we leaving tonight?"

He thinks his answer before responding.

"We're not going to Ishi anymore; we're heading toward Iwa." He doesn't look at her. "That should take us a day and a few hours."

Sakura doesn't say a word, just nods, and then they jump to the tree branches.

* * *

They reach another small and unconspicuous town near Iwa on a Sunday night, exactly a day after departing from the outskirts of Suna.

They haven't stopped at all since their departure; Sakura's feet are aching, and not in a good way. Even Sasuke is a little out of breath. So they stop in this town, and decide that they would leave to the heart of Iwa on the next day.

There's a bigger and more modern inn on the other side of the small village, the clerk—a robust man with a soft voice and gray hair on his scalp—even lets them know that there's a mixed hot spring at the back of the inn, after looking at them side to side. Sakura nods a little, not really considering it, and Sasuke remains silent at this.

They pay for one sole room, with only one bathroom and no kitchen or living room. Since they're only to stay in the village for a night, Sakura understands this is best.

They enter the cozy, small room and she takes off her bag, her cloak, and her sandals immediately, before Sasuke even gets to close the door. She hums a relieved sigh at her feet touching the cold floor of the room.

Sasuke follows her example and takes off his bag and dark cloak, leaving them on a chair in the corner. He takes it a step further, though, and takes off his shirt too, exposing his taut, defined torso to her eyes.

She quickly looks away, opening her bag and grabbing her camisole. She enters the bathroom and quickly changes, the only thing in her mind being the need to sleep. Her muscles ache and her eyes itch a little when she blinks too hard. It's all a sign for her to go to sleep until the late hours of the morning; Sasuke wouldn't mind, really, he's probably as tired as her but stubborn enough not to show it.

When she finally steps out of the bathroom, her eyes spot an uncomfortable-looking, shirtless Sasuke on the wooden chair. Her eyes roam over the perfectly made-for-two futon on the floor in the middle of the room. Although a little tight, she's sure they'll both fit without touching.

She lets her eyes soften at the sight of Sasuke sprawled on the chair, eyes closed, as if he was going to sleep there. After all the hours they'd been running non-stop, she's not going to let him.

She walks toward him, camisole gracing her thighs with each step. As soon as she steps into his personal space, he opens his eyes to stare at her stomach, right in front of his line of vision. He looks down at the small hand on the back of his own.

"Sasuke-kun," she whispers, as if afraid he'll pull away and be a stubborn jerk. "Sleep on the bed, come on."

She lightly tugs his hand toward her, in order to get her point across quickly: stand up. He frowns, following his gaze from her hand tugging on his own and up, until he sees her eyes staring at his own. They look a nice shade of yellow in the fading light of the candle on the wall to his left. The futon lies right in front of him, just a few steps ahead. He stares at it before returning his glance to her amber eyes.

"Where are you going to sleep, then?"

She chuckles a bit, finally getting him to stand up. She guides him toward the bed, even though she knows he can walk there alone.

"I'm sure you won't try anything on me, Sasuke-kun," she whispers, a smile widening on her face at his huff, _as if_.

He won't, but as they lie next to each other on the bed, and she covers the both of them with the white covers, and she shares the pillow with him, and she wakes up in the middle of the night to find his back flush against her back, and she turns around to look at the broad expanse of a back full of scars, she likes to pretend he will.

* * *

She goes out the next day when Sasuke tells her he's going to look around. The plan is to meet at the gates later to leave the village at noon.

She walks the streets of the village without a definite destination, just looking at everything new and unknown to her eyes. She scratches the idea of going to the nearest hospital; she has three hours to leave the village, so there's really no point.

Stopping at a weapon's store, she enters. She was lacking a few shuriken, having used them before amidst surprise attacks. So she buys a dozen, and pays the clerk of the store.

She turns to leave, and that's when she notices it.

She grabs it, asks for the price and pays for such a fine work at a very low price.

She then turns to the clerk as an idea pops in her head, and says: "Would you happen to know a paint store around here?"

* * *

They travel for twelve hours, the sky turning a grayish blue by the time they see the Iwa's gates in the background. No stops since the day before.

Sakura's stomach growls silently, wanting food. Her body screams for rest in the back of her consciousness, but all she wants to do now is eat a good, warm meal.

Especially when the rain is pouring on her back and over the hood that covers her head, so chilly and so harsh that she can't help the shiver that runs down her arms and legs. She wraps the dampened cloak to her body more closely as she sees the defined, closer gates. Sakura glances at Sasuke from the corner of her eye, right next to her, running over the treetops.

She'd suggested, since the rain started thirty minutes ago, to run on the earth instead of risking injury while running on the tree branches, jumping every new slippery branch, but she had shut up when the gates came in view.

The metal strapped to her side, expertly hidden to Sasuke's eyes under her cloak, reminds her of her goal. She frowns at the nervousness she suddenly feels; what if, what if he feels offended, somehow?

Any thoughts she has at the moment banish as Sasuke jumps to the moisty ground. Sakura follows him suit, walking alongside him through the gates and into Iwa.

With the current downpour, there's no one on the streets. Sakura's stomach demands attention and she shushes it with no words, wanting badly to get under a roof, inside a shelter.

Sasuke, fortunately with his sharingan, finds cover through the blurriness of the landscape. The thick raindrops fall so harshly toward the ground that it makes everything unrecognizable. Sakura can barely make out the path they're walking on, so she remains close to him, although without contact.

And soon enough the rain is there no more and Sakura dares to take off her hood, sliding it down the back of her wet head and down to rest on her cloak. She looks around.

Another inn.

It's small and very rural, not really what she'd expect from a village like Iwa. Nevertheless, once they enter, it's really warm and cozy and Sakura wants to wrap herself in a thousand covers while reading medical scrolls and drinking hot chocolate.

She pays for the night. As soon as Sasuke took out the money after briefly talking to the owner of the place, she was quick to give the young woman the money. Not that it mattered, really, but the look on Sasuke's face was worth it. Defeated.

* * *

"Do you think they'll let us borrow more?" She asks, the second wool cover reaching up to her nose, engulfing her body while sitting on the chair of the tiny room. Sasuke makes a few noises and ruffles a few clothing garments before responding.

"You could ask." He answers, his voice muffled by the closed door of the bathroom. She looks up when she hears him, uncharacteristic of him, speak again shortly after his reply. "Are you that cold?"

"Aren't you?" She asks back, burying her face in the warm material of the covers around her. She slightly feels bad that she's left Sasuke with no covers at all. The futon is naked of any sheets in front of the chair.

"No."

When Sasuke walks out of the bathroom, he's wearing a plain shirt and shorts that could be mistaken for underwear—wait, are they? She doesn't really care at the moment, the only thought troubling her was an entirely different topic. Sakura's eyes widen at the sight of his shorts; was he really not cold at all?

She stares at him and he stares at her, taking in her ridiculous form for a long time. She gasps at his words.

"You're shivering," he whispers, frowning at her. It's then that she notices how, indeed, she is trembling despite the covers that are supposed to protect her.

She hides her face once more under the covers, closing her eyes. And she doesn't know how long she's in this position, but when she feels a heavy weight on her shoulders down to her back, she opens her eyes in alarm.

Sasuke lays two more covers over her, wrapping them securely around her, careful to avoid letting any space of her body out of the warmth. He walks from behind her to the front of her vision, and looks at her like she's a little sick kid and he's her guardian angel.

Sakura almost laughs against her thoughts, but decides against it when she sneezes. Three times.

Sasuke frowns.

She stares and blinks as a plate of ramen is thrown in her line of vision, without further ado. She looks at him, deciding to tease him a bit for the time being, even though her stomach is craving a plate of ramen like never before in her life.

"Ramen?"

She knows more than anyone how tired he was of ramen, Naruto forcing him to eat it any time he could.

She likes to think she sees a blush on Sasuke's neck. But then again, in her hazy state, nothing can be really what she thinks it is.

"It's for you, Sakura." Before she can ask what he knows she'll worry about, he speaks again to appease her mind. "I already ate while you were napping."

She was napping?

She finishes the whole plate in ten minutes. It's not the best thing, but it's probably the only food the inn had. They were lucky this inn even had any food at all.

She fights the urge to sneeze again. He takes the plate from her hands and puts it somewhere but she doesn't have the energy to look.

"Sakura," he states, a slightly upset tone in his voice. "Come on."

That's all he says before she feels a strong hand on her hunched back, urging her to stand up with a gentle touch.

And when he turns off the lights and they're lying side by side on the bed, Sakura wraps one of her covers around him, hoping he doesn't complain about it. He doesn't, so she turns on her side and sighs a content breath in her sickly state, aware of Sasuke turning toward her and sleeping next to her newly heated body.

* * *

She's been waiting.

Since the weapon's store she went to a few days ago, she's been waiting.

She grips the handle harder.

In the back of her head there's a voice saying this is wrong, this is wrong and he won't like any of it. But then again, she had put her time and effort, right before departing to Iwa, she had painted the design and she had done it without any point of reference. It doesn't look perfect, and she's sure Sai would've painted everything better, but it's not bad at all; it almost seems proffesional, it would be if Sakura was an expert artist. Having skilled medic hands did help her, though.

Taking a breath, she stares at the door of their room in the inn. She looks stupid, standing like a schoolgirl in front of a door with a sharp object in her hand. She knows there's absolutely no one foreign to them in the inn this night.

The skies outside are a dark blue, no clouds and, therefore, no rain. Her temporary cold because of the rain the previous night had long passed.

She lets out a frustated breath, inhaling once again.

She's been waiting. All her life, a month, a week, a day, an hour, right now.

Maybe he's asleep, maybe he's not even there; she knows he's there, inside the room, but she likes to hope.

She knocks only once.

He opens the door a breath later, shirtless and with his traveling bottoms. His eyes narrow ever-so slightly and his lips purse together when he frowns.

She's sure she'll faint from holding her breath for so long.

But before he can talk, she lifts her hand and shows him the fine, expertly made Katana. The design is simple but graceful; black cover, and black handle and thin, lethal blade under said protective cover.

He looks at her with doubt, raising an eyebrow at her odd behaviour. She only grips the handle tighter and iches it closer to him.

He takes it with a hesitant hand, inspecting it over and under with scrutinizing eyes.

When he unsheathes it, she looks at his expression intently. His eyes widen for a split second, before returning to its usual coldness. Nothing prepares her, though, for the stare he gives her.

 _Did you make this_ dies in his throat the moment he looks at her. Her hair softly frames her heart-shared face, her teeth bite into her lower lip with anticipation, and her eyes glow over with a mixture of surprise, happiness, and fear.

His gaze is cold and warm and so intense that she feels her knees grow weak for a moment right then and there.

His eyes soften against hers, he doesn't even notice how his shoulders slacken and his hand relaxes around the blade's handle. His thumb graces over the hand-painted Uchiha Clan emblem, bright colours warming his heart. A symbol of the past, the present, and the future.

She's been waiting.

And she doesn't have to wait anymore when he looks at her like that, his hand leaving the sword and instead putting it against the wall inside the room; she doesn't have to wait anymore when he takes her hand and pulls her forward, gently, inside and she closes the door behind her.

And when he leans down, she leans forward and clashes her lips softly against his, closing her eyes and putting her cold hands on his bare chest, receiving a hiss from between kisses.

She moves her hands up to his shoulders, grasping them tightly and biting his lip as soon as he opens his mouth and starts kissing her with tongue. She almost smiles when he growls, deep from his throat and out.

"So, I guess you liked it," she lets out once his lips leave hers in a quick motion. He frowns, before letting a small smile curve his lips.

"No," she stares at him. "That's not it."

The look he gives her makes her frown slightly. He looks away.

"I've been waiting."

"For?"

They stare at each other. Meanwhile, Sakura's hands lower down his torso and stop moving at his navel.

When he takes a breath, but otherwise doesn't answer, she urges him on.

 _I've been waiting,_ I _have_ , she wants to scream and make the words very clear to him. But she doesn't, opting to ask him an easier question. She looks down to her hands on his navel, and she moves them to his back, almost hugging him to her. "What have you been waiting for?"

"I have done," he whispers, "things in my past, for which I regret." He doesn't look at her, and she doesn't look at him, just lets him speak. It's after a whole thirty seconds that he goes on. "I let you come with me in my travels, Sakura, but it's still my path to redemption."

Sakura looks up at him. The hurt in his eyes and the grimace on his lips makes her gulp down her heart.

"I try to help around in the villages, I try to make up for my sins. I have _hurt_ you." _In every way possible, and_ _I can't forgive myself. How would anyone forgive such pain?_ "I've been waiting to stop feeling-"

"Guilt?" Sakura whispers, biting her lip and moving her hands to the cheeks of his face, soft and hard and defined. She lets a small smile curve her lips. "I forgave you a long time ago, Sasuke-kun."

His eyes widen, and then she pecks his lips with hers before talking again.

"Stop waiting, alright? I forgive you," she mutters against his lips, kissing him once more and gasping as his lips attack her own, tongues twisting and breaths mingling.

Her heart beats against her chest widly, against his own frenzied organ. The butterflies in her stomach do a flip and she smiles in between the kisses because he finally opened up to her and she feels like this—they are—is going somewhere, that she doesn't have to wait anymore.

The next thing she feels is the bed on her back, hand around her waist and hands pulling on his hair.


End file.
